Resume Writing Tip #1
Posted on 05. Jul, 2009 by Graeme in Job Hunting News, Resume Formatting, Resume Tips, Resume Writing
The most important thing when writing your resume, and this goes for any resume type (whether you’re in sales, operations, marketing, technology, you name it) is that you demonstrate positive results for your former employers. This is important so I’m going to repeat it. When you write your resume you need to write it with results in mind and you need to articulate those results in a clear fashion that tells the recruiter or hiring manager that you make a positive impact at the organizations that employ you.
So how do you write your resume so that hiring managers can see your results? It comes down to measurable change that resulted from activities you participated in or were solely responsible for in your previous jobs. Sales jobs are the easiest – you simply include the dollar amount in sales that you generated and compare that to your quota (if applicable) so that you can clearly demonstrate measurable success at your previous company.
Let’s look at a best practice example of how to include results when you write your resume. Here is a sample sales resume prior to Resume Donkey reviewing the resume:
Assisted Vice-President in Phoenix Highway Product’s infancy by learning and implementing customer support skills, estimating and ordering complete construction projects and fulfilling every aspect of day to day responsibilities and requirements.
Cultivated strong customer relationships by providing support and developing a personal cliental base working in a team environment presenting product demonstrations and developing custom product solutions for various customers needs.
Closed $100,000 deal by converting a proprietary specification for cabinet equipment for the City of Tucson for an annual contract with the extension of up to 4 years.
Secured a multiple year contract with the City of Phoenix for cabinet components that met or exceeded $150,000 a year. Additionally, expanded and maintained a traffic signal contract for nearly $200,000 annually.
Continued to deliver detail oriented presentations which increased sales revenue exceeding the $2.5 Million dollar quota by 10%.
That’s not bad, but it doesn’t really show the total dollar amount and the true value that this person brought to their former employer. Let’s look at how the resume was written after receiving feedback from a Resume Donkey Resume Review:
- Increased Year-Over-Year revenues from 2002-2008 by an average of $1m per year through direct and installed-base sales efforts.
- Ended fiscal year 2008 at 310% of quota ($6.2m vs. $2.0m quota)
- Ended fiscal year 2007 at 180% of quota ($4.5m vs. $2.5m quota)
- Ended fiscal year 2006 at 110% of quota ($2.75m vs. $2.5m quota)
- Closed state of Arizona statewide contract for (what kind of products?) for $300k annually over (how many years?).
- Sold over $150k in new product deployments to City of xxx for xxx.
- Secured multi-year contracts delivering in excess of $150k & $200k in annual revenue to City of xxx for the delivery of cabinet components & traffic signals.
- Entered new market of Southern xxx in 2006 and established over $300k in net-new revenue through cold-calling and direct sales efforts.
- Grew key account, xxx, by renewing annual cabinet contract by $50k per year for an additional four (4) years.
- Developed new market share for various State & City customers in 2008 defining proprietary Light Emitting Diode specifications resulting in an additional $500k in new product support revenue
- Lead and conduct Product Sales Demonstrations for all major accounts
- Create custom sales & marketing support tools tailored for specific clients
See the difference here? The way the rewritten resume reads makes it very clear that this employee brings in tons of revenue over and over again. You can’t miss what a good sales person this candidate is with the second version of their resume.
The results are non-trivial. The first version of this candidate’s resume was receiving job interviews and offers of $40-60k per year. This is a person that had been making $100k per year at their previous sales position. With the rewritten resume this person quickly secured a new sales position for $135,000 per year guaranteed, even in this terrible economy.
Writing your resume with a focus on results, results in more dollars in your pocket.
Now you might be saying that of course, it’s easy to write for results in a sales position; but I’m not in sales. Any resume can be written to include results. If you’re in marketing, how many leads did you generate? What was the response rate? How many sales did you drive with your promotion? How many people were added to your email database over the course of your employment? Add those to your resume.
What about operations? How much money did you save with efficiencies and new processes you implemented? How did you cut costs? If you saved the company 7% a year in overhead that should be in your resume.
There is always a way to write your resume with results included. Ignore this at your own risk. Every resume should have results – no matter what your position or title.